Author's Note: Yes a second update in a week! Absurd I know, but I thought all of my Reylo readers would appreciate an extra chapter. So, happy reading!
Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever owned Star Wars. I simply play in their world.
Reviews! Reviews! Reviews! So how do you like this familiar stranger I am telling?
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away...
"When she is quiet
There is a reason.
She is sorting through
All the chaos in
Her head...
And all the madness
In her heart."
-LLK
Rey
Ajan Kloss
"I will end this war...I will keep that promise..."
His words reverberate through my mind, an endless loop that I can't seem to stop playing. Even when he's not here I can't seem to stop thinking about him.
But I have to.
Somehow.
"Any word from the Falcon or our other scouts?"
I look to Kin who is staring at his monitor but he shakes his head at me.
"Not yet...but I have a feeling that we'll hear something soon."
I pause at the strained tension I see on his face.
"What do you mean?"
"I've been keeping a close eye on First Order communique, piggybacking off a pirate signal...and if what I'm hearing is right...Kylo Ren has left his flagship in orbit around Mustafar. Had to do a quick bit of encryption breaking but...the Supreme Leader is gone. That's why we've not seen any activity. They're waiting for his return."
A chill sweeps across my soul and I grip my staff so tightly I can hear the binding's creaking beneath the pressure.
"Return?"
I keep my question nominal, trying not to betray my concern for Ren.
"Yeah...code gets scrambled here...I've lost some of the translation..." Kin sighs and pushes sandy hair away from murky blue eyes and stares up at me, frustration written all over his lean face.
"From what I've learned...it appears that the Supreme Leader has found an ancient Sith artifact that will lead him through the Unknown Region...but I can't confirm anything until the scouts check in."
Kin was talking about the wayfinder.
So, you did leave...after I told you it was suicide! Why do you never listen to me Ren!
"Rey?"
I blink and realize I haven't heard anything he's said in the past several seconds.
"Sorry...got lost in thought. Is it possible to actually get through the Unknown Region?"
That region of space was treacherous...full of rifts and dark holes and a thousand more dangers that we knew nothing about.
Again Kin gives me that frustrated look.
"If the Supreme Leader comes back in one piece...then yes. He'll be the first since the days of the Old Republic to cross the Unknown Region."
He did not look pleased with this prospect.
"Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll disappear for good. Having him gone would go a long way in winning this war."
I feel the smile freezing on my face, a rush of white noise in my head that is trying to drown out the screams in my heart.
"Somehow I don't think it will be that easy. Nothing ever is for us."
I don't know how I got the words out or sounded so calm but Kin gives me a rueful smile in response.
"Yeah, you're probably right." He swings around back to the monitor, pulling his headset on, "Better get back on this otherwise we might miss something. Leia will kill me for sure if I do, never mind the First Order."
I squeeze out a laugh and quickly retreat from Kin.
He's not dead, I tell myself as I move back to my area, he's not dead...
He's too damn stubborn to die!
"Rey?"
A snarl on my tongue, my anger and fear for Ren leaking through as I turn at the sound of a voice calling my name.
I quickly swallow my response when I see Rose standing there.
"What is it Rose?"
"I saw you talking to Kin and wanted to ask you to look at the target array system on Zaro's Y-wing. But if you're busy..."
I shake my head and drop my staff next to my crates. I take in some deep breaths and remember why I am here.
"No, I can help. Just let me gather some tools."
This is what I needed to be doing, helping the Resistance. Getting our ships ready for the battle I know is coming.
Not constantly thinking about a man who won't listen...
I blow out a breath and grab my tool pack.
Working on the array requires focus and meticulous care, it was a temperamental system that would allow me to get lost in my work and not dwell on other things.
Like what Ren was doing right now...
"Ready?" Rose asks me with a cheerful but determined mien.
"Ready."
I follow Rose as she begins to describe to me the new modifications the Engineering Corpse has been working on our hyperdrives and any other time I would have been paying close attention...but not now.
That cold chill across my soul hadn't abated, in fact despite the humid air of Kloss, a shiver runs through me.
Ben, I send my thoughts to the stars, even now I am unable to turn away from him completely, be safe. Come back, please come back.
Hours later...
"Wow, I can't believe you fixed the array and helped adjust the hyperdrive to the new modifications!"
I smile faintly at the tech. Another new recruit to the Resistance, whose name I have yet to learn.
"I've always been good at fixing things," I tell the male with the mauve skin and rust colored hair that holds at least a dozen or more braids, "I'm Rey."
"Yeah I know. Rose...I mean, Ms. Tico, speaks of you all of the time. She said you're one of the best techs on the base!"
I can't help but smile at his enthusiasm. He's like an eager Eaduuan sand puppy. All bounce and wiggle.
He's grinning at me, his white teeth a bright contrast to his dark skin and I wait for him to introduce himself.
He continues to grin at me and I sigh.
"I'm sorry...I didn't catch your name."
"Oh...Oh! I'm Tokarr from Eadu!"
I have to bite back my laughter.
"N-nice to meet you Tokarr."
"Yeah...you too! Hey...can I ask you something?"
I sigh, push a strand of hair behind my ear and nod my head.
"Go for it."
"Are you...really...I mean...a Jedi?"
Coral eyes look at me with earnest anticipation and I bit back another sigh. It was always the same question with the new ones.
"Yes," I tell him keeping my words calm, "I am."
I begin packing up my tools, waiting for the next inevitable question. I look around, wondering what pebble I can levitate this time.
"Ummm...Miss Rey..,"
"Just Rey," I tell him absently as I gather up my stuff, "and yes you can ask another question."
"Oh...uh, how did you know? Never mind...so...is it true..."
He swallows and I wonder why he's so nervous about asking me if I can show him some Jedi tricks.
"Are you really not allowed to love anyone?"
The portable plasma torch drops from my suddenly nerveless fingers.
"What?"
I snap my head up to look at him. He's staring at me with a peculiar mix of confusion...and pity.
"I'm sorry...it was something Master Skywalker once said long ago."
I blink, feeling the world tilt around me.
"You met Master Skywalker?"
How could he have met him? This Eaduurian looks younger than me!
"Master Skywalker came to our village years ago," he tells me much to my shock, "looking for youngling's with the gift. He explained to our elders that those who were sensitive to the Force would need to be trained."
Tokarr chuckled, "I guess it was his first time in an Eaduurian village, but you know how we are."
"I'm sorry...I don't, not really."
"Huh," he fingers one the multitude of braids that make up his hair, "well we live in great clans. Generations upon generations. So the thought of having to give up a child for training...well, no one on Eadu would ever agree to that even if it was the Master Jedi asking."
"Surely you must have orphans...younglings who have lost parents or family members to...to war or sickness or even death?"
There were always the abandoned and the forgotten. The ones that no one wanted.
Tokarr nods his head. "Sure, but they're absorbed into other clans. No one is left behind or alone. Everyone is cared for."
I felt a stab in my heart, a pang of faint envy.
What must that be like to know your entire life that you were loved?
That you were wanted.
"Anyway so Master Skywalker knew that any child who had a gift would not willingly leave the clan."
"So he must have left? Right?"
Tokarr shakes his head at me. "No, that was the funny part. He stayed in our village for three more days. He didn't do or say much, he seemed content to simply watch our village life. But one day when I was playing with clan mates, I noticed Master Skywalker was sitting all alone. I thought that strange, I was only a youngling at the time, and asked him where his mate and children were."
"What did he say to you?"
"He gave me this sad look and said that he was Jedi and he was not allowed to have a mate or a child, because that meant forming an attachment...love, he told me, and for a Jedi that was forbidden. A true Jedi had to let go of all attachment to understand the Force."
I can't speak, his words cascading through my mind.
A Jedi wasn't allowed to love? I have never even heard of that rule!
But...But Leia had married Han and...had Ben.
A small voice from deep within me whispers that Leia never completed her Jedi training with Luke.
She wasn't considered a true Jedi.
"I was so glad back then that I didn't have the gift. I couldn't imagine not loving my clan mates. To deny them would have been to deny a part of who I am."
Tokarr gives me a sheepish smile. "Sorry, but when I heard that the last Jedi was female...I wondered what kind of person you were to give up a life without love. But you are kind and funny and..." his dark skin around his face turns a shocking shade of magenta and he averts his eyes suddenly from mine, "very pretty."
I blink at him, wondering what being 'pretty' had to do with being a Jedi?
"Umm...thank you?"
"It's a pity that you won't take on a mate..."
He has a soft sigh in his voice, a tinge of regret to his words that confuses me.
"I-"
"Tokarr! Are you done with those repairs yet?"
Tokarr jumps away from me, a guilty look on his face.
"Yeah Ms. Tico, we just finished up!"
"Great," Rose looks at the Eaduurian and points in the opposite direction, "go check in with Lieutenant Chireen. His sister Nimi is due back from her mission any time now and I want those modifications ready to be installed as soon as she lands."
"Right! On my way...uh Miss...I mean Rey, it was nice meeting you."
I lift my hand in a wave as the Eaduurian races off to the other side of the compound.
"Sorry Rey, he can be a bit of a talker."
I shake my head as I finally gather the last of my scattered tools.
"It's fine. He was just asking some questions."
"Probably curious about you being the 'last Jedi' and all." Rose gives me a slightly abashed look. "Of course that doesn't help that I'm always talking about you. Me and my big mouth."
I manage a smile and press my hand to my stomach.
"Don't worry, they seem to find me even without your help. The modifications are done so I'm going to go find food now."
I wave to Rose and take off before she can ask me any more questions. I'm not really hungry but the question that Tokarr asked me...
A strange, heavy weight in my heart.
A true Jedi can have no attachments...cannot love...
I swallow hard. That couldn't be right! Tokarr must have misheard Luke.
But a memory from over a year ago surfaces, drowning me in emotions I thought I had locked away...
I was shaking, I have never felt so cold and it has nothing to do with my freezing skin or the water dripping from my clothes. I feel heavy, weighed down by a grief I cannot name.
I'm in my hut and I have no memory of how I made it back.
I strip off wet clothes to stop the water from pooling and toss the sodden mess into a corner. A small fire has already been lit and I wrap the coarse blanket around my body, staring into the flames, watching them dance.
Seeing nothing...wanting to be nothing. To simply disappear...
Who would care if I was gone? Who would even miss a nobody like me?
A whisper across my mind, the scent of night and ice-shattered rain in the air and I know he's here with me...and the tears slip down my face.
Why, when all I want is to vanish, does he appear to hold me in place?
"Tell me what's wrong."
When did his voice become so soft, so full of quiet comfort?
He doesn't sound like my enemy, doesn't feel like the man I am suppose to hate and the words spill from my lips.
I speak to him of the cave...of the answers I was seeking...only to be left with nothing in the end.
"...and I have never felt so alone."
I feel so broken...so lost.
"You're not alone."
He's been silent, until now. A ghost at my side but I never forgot that he was with me.
An ache in my chest, my breath catching and I lift my head to stare into his dark gaze. The flickering light dances across his face and there is no malice in him.
No mockery...just acceptance...and quiet sorrow in eyes of shadowed obsidian.
He knows...
This terrible loneliness, this grief in my soul that sets me adrift in the galaxy...he knows...because he has felt it too..and because he knows what it is like to be broken, how can I turn him away?
I can't. I don't want to.
"Neither are you."
I feel, more than hear, his breathing falter. I cannot take my eyes from his, it feels as though there is only the two of us now.
Together.
Slowly, I lift my hand...holding it out to him...
A part of me wonders if he will take it...and a deeper part of me prays that he will.
"It's not too late."
I wonder if I am speaking to him...or to myself.
I watch him pull the glove from his hand, feel the pounding of my heart as he slowly reaches for me.
I can scarcely take a breath...and I think...neither can he.
The brush of his fingers across mine, calloused and rough...and the bone-chilling cold in my soul flees in the rush of heat from that simple touch...
A vision blooms in my mind...
"What is this?"
Ren and I turn as one to see Luke staring at us in shocked horror...and I realize that Luke can see Ren...as if he were actually here with me...
"NO!"
Luke thrusting out his hand, breaking us apart and I turn to Ren just as he disappears...regret and vulnerable longing in drowning eyes of darkness...
I swallow back the tears, slamming the memory shut.
That one moment in time had reshaped the course of my life.
I had always wondered why Luke had seemed so scared, so angry with the fact that Ben and I had been touching hands.
"He has to be wrong, there has to be another explanation."
I walk back to my camp and drop my pack to pull out all the books that I confiscated from the Jedi temple.
I pause in the middle of my task, wondering if I shouldn't go to Leia...she trained with her brother, so she should know...
I shake my head and settle down into a comfortable position.
Leia has enough going on.
She doesn't need me coming up to her with random questions...because those questions lead to more question...and right now I don't want to examine too closely why I need this answer so badly.
I just do.
"No...no," I scan the writing, frustration riding me hard, "that's not it either..."
I've been reading these books for hours, long enough that I've had to turn on my portable lamp.
I really should just...
My vision shimmers, a sense that the world has shifted around me...and the scent of ice-shattered rain surrounds me...
A sensation that someone is behind me.
I snap my head around and stare into drowning eyes of darkness.
Ren is standing a few feet away and I never felt him...until just now.
He's here and he's alive!
I'm on my feet, my earlier task forgotten upon seeing him...but then I hear the sound of voices in the distance and quickly look around.
I've been caught talking to myself before and I really don't like the looks I get.
"They can't see me Rey," his voice wraps around me, silk and starlight and a faint touch of amusement, "Only you."
I feel the flush of heat creeping across my face and once more he's managed to catch me off guard and I ball my fists, averting my eyes from his.
Every time he looks at me I swear he can see all the secrets I'm trying to hide from him.
"I know that," I mutter darkly, "I just...don't want anyone to think I'm going crazy talking to myself."
"Since when did you care about the opinions of other's?"
Derisive words from him, a cool touch of disappointment and I look at him, stung by harsh criticism.
"Because they matter to me, that's why!" I growl out...and realize that he's baiting me and I shove a hand through my hair, "why am I even explaining myself to you..."
"Why indeed."
Again that mocking tone and I frown at him. Was he deliberately trying to make me angry? Was this the only way we could communicate anymore, by arguing?
I hear his sigh and it has a touch of weariness to it.
Since he's here with me...he must have returned from Exegol.
So many questions inside my mind but all I can think about is if he is hurt like last time.
I want to ask him...and I don't know how.
"What are you reading?"
His question startles me and I look down reflexively at my hand. I'm still holding onto the journal I was reading earlier.
"I-" was trying to find out if Jedi really are not allowed to fall in love, "none of your business."
There was no way I was going to tell him that.
Emotions chase themselves across his face, flickering so quickly that I can't read half of them but I see annoyance settle in his eyes and he crosses the distance between us.
Once more I am forced to tilt my head up to look at him but I refuse to back away.
If he thinks to intimidate me he...
"Hey!" I yelp when he reaches out and grabs the book from my fingers.
He ignores my protest and begins flipping through pages, his lips pulling up slightly at the corners as if amused by something.
"Still reading these boring..." that faint amusement quickly dies and I notice he's opened up the section where Luke wrote about the wayfinder.
I don't understand how he found it so quickly. I read his journal for months before discovering those pages and he was able to find it in minutes.
Ren looks at me and I see a dangerous light burning in his gaze.
"Stay away from Exegol."
I hear the snap of his command, feel the brush of his temper as he slams the journal closed.
My own temper that had been simmering burns brightly now.
"No," I refuse and make my own demand of him, "now give that back to me."
His eyes flair in the darkness and I see the stubborn set of his chin and I am not in the mood for his games.
"It's mine."
"Why do you defy me?"
My mouth nearly drops at such an absurd question and to make it worse he sounds so confused by my actions.
Defy him? Defy him! Just who did he think I was.
"Why do you think you can give me orders and expect them to be obeyed!"
Why doesn't he ever listen to me. We wouldn't argue so much if he wasn't so damn sure he was right all the time.
"Because I'm trying to protect you!"
I blink and I can't believe he just said that to me.
"I don't need you to protect me!" Hadn't I already proved that to him, "I can do that on my own!"
Our eyes lock and I see the frustration, hear the rasp of his gloves when he clenches his fist and I wonder, not for the first, what it is about him that I simply can't walk away from.
"You're not listening to me."
His words are calm but I can hear the muted rage behind them and I throw up my hands out of sheer exasperation.
Those should have been my words to him.
"Maybe you're not saying anything I want to hear!" Gods, does he even think about what he's saying at all, "Did that ever occur to you?"
I expect a retort from him, something to bait me with...but he doesn't.
For a second I see a flicker of hesitation as the silence grows between us and like that my anger is snuffed out.
I was worried about him...and all we're doing is arguing over a book.
It all seems so stupid...so pointless.
I lower my arms and hold them tightly against me.
"Ren," wariness in his eyes and I want cry at seeing it, "why are you here?"
His visits now are never without reason and I've stopped trying to block him. The constant drain on me, the impossible fatigue...
"I wanted to see you."
He sounds the way he did that night in the hut...
Someone who knew the pain of loneliness...and lived with it still.
My heart clenches in response and I move towards him.
If only we could just talk the way we used to...
I'm so close to him now I can feel the chill of his body.
"Why?"
I look up at him, willing him to tell me the truth.
To be honest with me so that maybe we could finally...
"I-"
"Rey? Where are you?"
No, not now!
That was Finn's voice and panic digs cruel claws into me. I know that Finn can sense the Force.
I've see the way his eyes go out of focus, as if he is somewhere far away...or listening to a voice no one else can hear.
A look of rage crosses Ren's face and he can't be here.
Not like this.
"Go!" I whisper harshly as I snatch Luke's journal back from his grip, "get out of here!"
He looks at me as if wanting to tell me something important but I can't stay, I can already hear Finn getting closer and turn away from him.
"Rey!"
My vision blurs...the world resets...and I am no longer surrounded by his scent.
My throat locks at the loss. I didn't realize until he had come back into my life how much comfort his scent was to me.
He is gone and already I miss him.
"Finn! Hi! You're back!"
I hope he can't tell how nervous I am...or why.
"Rey!" Finn grabs me into a hug, practically pulling me off my feet. "Where were you? Didn't you hear me calling for you?"
"Ah, sorry, reading."
I pull out of his arms and hold up my book like a piece of shielding.
He shakes his head at me. "Typical Rey. Well put that down. We've got some news that you need to hear."
I swallow hard but nod my head.
Whatever news he had couldn't be good. Especially if he and Poe were back quicker than what we had originally anticipated.
"Sure. Right behind you."
Gently I put Luke's journal back with the other books.
I didn't find my answer.
But I had already made my choice regarding Ren and our...relationship.
So then why was I still hesitating over him?
